love and lycanthropy and other institutions
by teh tarik
Summary: Nature is an institution. As is love. (Remus/Sirius)


**note: this is an old fic, thought I'd post it here. :)**

* * *

Before the full moon rises, there are thirty-seven hours left for Remus to count.

He tries not to, but the hours keep flaking away, ticking down to minutes, to sparse crumbs of time, and when those are gone, the clock in his brain resets. Remus is trapped in the circuit of counting and waiting.

It's going to be the last full moon of their last year of school, and yet James makes no mention of it. No plans for how they're going to go about their final nocturnal escapade. 'The Marauders' Moonlight Monkeyshines' is what they used to call these excursions. Sirius came up with that name sometime during their fifth year. They're seventh years now, a long way away from when everything began. James has been a surprisingly decent Head Boy all year, though to make up for this, his badge is perpetually pinned upside down on his robes.

Right now, it's breakfast time at the Great Hall, and Remus's runny eggs have been reduced to yellow splotches on his plate and bacon grease is congealing into dirty jelly but he can't really give a crap about his food. Meanwhile, James is waxing and waning lyrical about fair Lily Evans and his previous week's Head Prefect rounds with her and Sirius is cramming in as much innuendo as possible with a sly interjection here and there.

Well, good for James, then.

As for Peter, honest guileless Peter, he opens his mouth to ask about the full moon, but Remus sticks his leg out under the table and steps on his foot.

 _Leave it,_ he mouths at Peter.

Lily passes by soon enough, Charms textbook clutched to her chest and a fiery phoenix emblazoned on the back of her robes. She's going to be leading yet another one of those meetings for seventh years. The meetings are supposedly to assist school-leavers and offer peer-to-peer support with exploring possible career options for the future, but in the last six months, Lily has managed to steer these meetings along a more political pathway, one that is decidedly anti-Voldemort. The phoenix on the back of her robes is no coincidence.

James jumps up, turning to Remus, Sirius, and Peter with the sternest expression he can muster, something he'd picked up from Lily. " _N.E._ are coming, you lot, and you're still sitting around?"

"Don't be a hypocrite," Lily says. Lily's face becomes lopsided when she smiles; the right side of her face smiles a lot more, making the left half appear sardonic. James does a bloody bad imitation of her. "You can stay with your mates if you want. I've got a study date with Mary before the meeting."

"Wait, no, I'll come," James yelps, and off he goes, leaving behind his stone-cold breakfast along with Remus, Peter and Sirius.

Sirius only laughs as he spears a sausage from Remus's plate and transfers it to his own empty one. "Wanker."

He pivots his body sideways, hoists his legs onto James's vacated seat, and leans into Remus's shoulder.

Right now. In the sodding Great Hall, in front of everyone.

"Too gay, Lupin!" Stebbins jeers as he passes.

"Get a room, you two!" Aubrey calls from across the Hall.

Sirius merely yawns and gives them the two-fingered salute. Remus slides a little under the table, but Sirius's hand clamps on his knee, holding him steady.

"Ignore, Moony. Ignore. We'll get them after breakfast."

"So," Peter says at last from across the table. "James has plans. What do we three do for the upcoming full moon?"

"It's exam time," Remus snaps. "You both should be revising. I can be on my own for one night."

Peter falters a reply and hides his face in his goblet of pumpkin juice.

"Moony is a big man now." Sirius smirks and the great iron-skulled lump of his head falls backward onto Remus's shoulder. "He doesn't need us to babysit him all the time."

"Shove off." Remus bucks his shoulder and Sirius wobbles off the bench but lands on his feet. _Honestly_. "Sorry, Pete. But I think we've got more to think about here than the usual full moon soiree."

"We're nearly done with school, that's all there is," Sirius says. "They treat us like babies in here. Institutionalise us here and all. We'll all be something useful once we're out. That's all we ought to be care about."

 _Our institutionalised lives_ , a phrase James had come up with during their sixth year and Sirius had scathingly applauded the depths of his best mate's intellectualism. But it's a term that has caught on. Especially these days, when both James and Sirius are rearing to finish off with school and join in the old men's war. Peter looks despairing as he emerges from the oceanic depths of embarrassment within his goblet.

Between now and the end of their _institutionalised lives_ , there is still one full moon left. Also, Remus isn't sure he really wants to leave the institution.

* * *

In a way, lycanthropy is an institution. Someone has taken him, Remus Lupin, padded him in flesh and strapped bones around him, kept his growth in check by aligning him with the lunar schedule. Lycanthropy, the Institution, is patient and it is orderly. It _always_ waits its turn and never shows up unexpectedly. And always shows up when expected, of course. On the dot.

When Remus first comes to Hogwarts, sick and weedy and eleven and feeling over-privileged in his threadbare school robes, he keeps his head down and takes to rubbing his forearms all through the train ride and the Sorting ceremony, hoping that nobody will notice the true illness deep within him. Rumours spread that Remus has a disease, one that makes his forearms shed skin like scabby snowflakes. Lupin, the Leper is a name that floats around him. But better that than the truth.

Every night, the moon grows and gradually moults its black wrappings. He feels its movements churning in his blood. When he sleeps, the phases of the moon are pale welts swerving through the darkness between dreams. The full moon when it rises, has a face potholed with the scars of celestial acne, the bloated curve of its scalp blooming over the tips of the trees, dragging its pasty bulk into position. The moon is an ugly arse sitting in the sky.

Transformation, in all its agony, is very clinical; he knows what comes first, what comes next. First, the long strings of his blood freeze and knot within his veins. Next, the beats of his pulse stumbling into each other before accelerating. The pulling back of eyelids, the shredding of muscles, the bones stretched in the rack of his own body. The snapping of vertebrae, the remodelling of vocal cords.

Nature always follows its own laws. The Institution is a systematic beast.

The first time Remus enters the Shrieking Shack, Madam Pomfrey's firm but wary hand between his shoulder blades, pressing him all the way along the secret tunnel, he knows that somehow he deserves this place. Stripped walls and ragged staircases, all the windows shuttered and planked up. According to Madam Pomfrey, the Headmaster himself had swept through the premises, reinforcing it with the most escape-proof of wards.

It will contain him, the Shack. Like a prison. Prisons are institutions, aren't they? An institution within an institution. Funny.

* * *

Thirty hours to the full moon.

Remus feels like he's skimming the threshold of something fluid and dream-like, except he's all too well-acquainted with this sensation.

"Moony's version of PMS," is what Sirius calls this nausea that develops when the full moon approaches.

They're sitting at the back of a classroom crowded with sixth and seventh year students elbowing each other, squatting on desks, perched on the windowsills, whistling and cheering. The floor is inches deep with red, blue and yellow flyers, printed with screeching phoenixes. At the front of the classroom is Lily Evans with folded arms, glowering at everyone as she rattles off a long speech peppered with slogans. Blood equality. Higher level of Ministry protection for Muggles and Muggle-borns. The Dark Lord and his fascist regime. Traditional pureblood ideals are discriminatory and unjust. So on and so forth. James is sitting right in front of her, feet propped up on the desk, butting in with the occasional _fuck, yeah_. Time to time, he turns to the rest of the room behind him and echoes her words and pumps his fists and stirs up a riot of cheering.

The meeting ends and everyone streams out of the classroom, Sirius shoving Remus along. Lily and James remain behind, dumping stacks of more flyers into exiting students' arms. Peter is nowhere to be seen.

"Circulate these," Lily tells them sternly.

"Need some of this?" Sirius says, thrusting a block of foil-wrapped chocolate under Remus's nose after they've escaped the hell-crush of students.

" _Thank_ you." He bites through the wrapper and spits out the foil. Sirius grins at this show of savagery. "A moment later and I'd be hurling all over your shoes."

"Not like you haven't." He bumps aside an indignant Ravenclaw fifth-year. "Eat the whole block, you get any paler and you'll be putting James's Invisibility Cloak to shame."

"I'm alright," Remus replies with as much nonchalance as he can muster. Sirius tugs on his shoulder to slow him down, quite possibly to spin him around and make Remus face him. He shakes off Sirius's grip irritably. "Really, I'm good. Since when do you fuss like a girl? And where's Peter, anyway?"

Peter turns up later when Remus and Sirius are both sprawled across the armchairs in the common room, cushions and notes strewn on the floor.

"Where've you been?" Sirius says.

Peter looks rather harried. "I was cornered outside the second floor Charms classroom. By Aubrey and Rosier."

"That's just two slimebag Slytherins. You can't really call them a corner," says Sirius.

"They said some sick things."

"Spouting the usual drivel, then?"

"About the war." Peter's voice pitches high and low, breaking strange registers, like water in a shaking jug. 'They said we're done for once we get out of Hogwarts. That blood traitors like us are targeted."

Sirius stretches, hands curling into fists as he pushes them high above his head. His spine pops like gum in several places. "Once we get out of school, _we'll_ be protecting you, alright? You're safe, so long as you stick around with us."

"I think you're simplifying things- "

But Sirius cuts Peter off. "Do yourself a favour, Pete. The next time you run into those Slytherins, hex them. Hex them hard and in their mouths. You'll feel much better after that."

Peter sneaks a glance at Remus, who says nothing. His whole body is curved over a stack of notes as though they're the fulcrum of his entire existence; his elbows are pins holding the parchment in place across his lap. The words are a dark blot in his eyes.

"You remember those good old days?" Peter says. "Back when we first wrote the Map, or maybe when we started raiding the Restricted Section for Animagi tips?"

Sirius laughs and sticks his quill between his teeth. "I recall a certain book about hags that crunched James's glasses and bit his ear."

"And then it proceeded to shred half the Restricted Section- " Peter continues.

" -before finally taking three inches off Mrs Norris's tail when she popped in," Remus finishes.

Sirius nods, absently. "Glory days."

"I wish we could have them back," says Peter.

"So you mean stay in Hogwarts forever?" Sirius scoffs. "As many good times I've had with you lot in school, I swear this place gets smaller and smaller each day. We've outgrown it. We're _needed_ out there. If it weren't for you lot, I'd give all these exams a miss and leave and take up the fight against Voldemort."

Peter gives up, scowling as he snatches up his Potions textbook and flips it open in an angry slap of pages. Sirius doesn't notice. The common room door opens, and in come Lily and James, laughing, the pile of books in their arms looking like it doesn't belong there. Remus sinks back a great distance into himself, watching his mates as though he isn't with them any longer.

* * *

During Remus's second year at Hogwarts, friends are an unexpected twist in the plot. Later, an all too expected twist in the knickers.

James Potter and Sirius Black are _the_ pranking partnership of the school. Everyone wants to be them, to be part of something like them. But of all the many supporters of their double brand of mischief, it is little Peter Pettigrew, upon whom they grandly and benevolently bestow consent to follow them around, lounge in the limelight of association.

Sirius Black catches Remus one day along a quiet stretch by the haunted girl's bathroom. Remus knows little about Sirius who surprisingly doesn't brag much about being the heir to a wealthy pureblood family. Sirius Black has a way of making jokes, which aren't always kind, but are so good-humoured that they make the other person agree with him, reluctantly. Remus has always kept well away from Sirius.

"So, Lupin, where d'you keep disappearing to all the time?" Sirius asks. "Is it true you've got a dangerous disease? Come on, tell me and James. We aren't afraid."

"I do have a very contagious and terminal sickness. It's called the flu," he retorts, though there is hardly any force in his words. His last transformation was only three days ago, and lately, he has been struggling with concentration in class.

Sirius's hand darts forward, catches Remus's arm and quick as a flash, peels the sleeve back to his elbow. His jaw clenches slightly. Remus's exposed forearm is grasped by a torn netting of scars, crookedly running into each other, white for the aged scars, pink for the younger lines. The flesh around the newest of scars is stung a waning scarlet.

"So you aren't Lupin the Leper, after all."

"Sod off," Remus can only croak as he snatches back his hand and the sleeve falls into place, a dull sheath dropping over his wrist, down to his knuckles. His robes were tailored for someone larger and longer-armed than him. He all but runs away, the edges of his cheeks alight with mortification, and yet in some distant corner of thought, there is the mentholated sting of relief. Sirius has seen them, those damning lines; the burden is on _him_. Remus isn't to blame. Whatever happens, happens. If the whole school finds out, well there's nothing they can do to him that he isn't already doing to himself. His run becomes a stroll, and his heart slows right down, as though it's accepted that there's nothing it can do for this body that it beats for.

In the days that follow, Remus avoids James and Sirius and Peter, ducking into the Hospital Wing whenever he can convincingly feign illness.

 _Not Lupin the Leper after all_. Sirius's eyes are opaque; nothing visible goes through them. But when he'd been gripping at Remus's wrist, some sly ray of the sun had struck the grey in his irises, illuminating a strange comma of cruelty in his stare. Remus understands now that he'd been the focus of a failed prank.

Sirius and James and Peter start being nice to him, and it unnerves him at first. It feels as though he's being drawn into a sense of lull, his trust pulled out of him and shared among them. At the Great Hall, they crowd around him too closely as he's forking cottage pie into his mouth and whenever possible, one of them always sits in next to him in his classes.

It's not all bad, really.

The three of them figure it out soon enough; they're brilliant students after all. Remus can only imagine them discussing, putting things together, like the fact that Remus has never gone round the dorm shirtless like everybody else. Or perhaps Sirius would have sketched a diagram of the scars he'd seen, the ridged and rutted parallels, the colour of the contusions.

One morning, on the way to Potions, he finds himself being abducted by the three of them.

"Mr. Lupin, I believe we do have something very _serious_ to discuss." James is clamped onto his left arm, steering him along while doing a piss-poor imitation of Professor McGonagall. James is always imitating people and botching his imitations and now when Remus next sees Professor McGonagall, he'll only be seeing James's caricature superimposed over her strict features. He may never be able to take McGonagall seriously ever again.

"We're taking you somewhere far away. It's quite a hairy situation," Peter chimes in, jogging to keep up with James's lengthy strides.

"And then we'll beat the truth out of you," Sirius grins. This time, there's no mockery twisting the ends of his mouth into barbs.

The vacant Astronomy Tower is their choice of interrogation chamber. James, Sirius and Peter take turns clambering onto the window ledge to get an elevated seat and to stare down at Remus, who feels like he's being trialled before a rather absurd court.

It's James who speaks first. "We never knew you were this wild, Remus."

"Yeah, you're usually just mooning about by yourself," Peter says and everyone bursts into laughter.

This isn't the reaction Remus was expecting. Their laughter and words don't make sense; perhaps this is another elaborate prank of theirs.

Sirius jumps down from the ledge and lands next to him. "This doesn't change a thing." He flings his arm around Remus's shoulders, and his other hand starts rumpling Remus's hair roughly. Sirius smells like the sharp chemicals of expensive ink and the fusty damp of robes that weren't hung out to dry properly. "You're still one of us, aren't you?"

It has never occurred to Remus until now that they'd been slowly absorbing him into their little group, that somehow, he belongs with them; they've fitted themselves into the framework of his existence, unearthed his deepest, most loathsome secret and then waved it away. They've made him _theirs_.

And bloody hell if Remus isn't grateful. How does he even deserve this?

"I'm a monster, you morons."

"Think you're so special, eh?" James teases.

"So what are we going to do about this?" Peter asks, a sparkle in his voice. It's his turn on the ledge and he's silhouetted against the bright window. Remus clambers up next to him and glances outside. Down below, the school grounds are miniaturised, whitewashed in sunlight.

"There's nothing you can possibly do."

"Oh, isn't there?" Sirius challenges.

* * *

Twenty-five hours to the full moon.

Remus is walking to dinner, Sirius at his side blathering on about James's explosive snoring, when someone tugs on his arm. He turns and there's Peter, who hauls him away from Sirius with surprising strength. They find themselves in a recess along the corridor, jostling for space with a suit of armour, its gauntleted fingers gripping a newly-oiled mace. The other students tide on towards the Great Hall, Sirius's head long vanished in the human current.

Peter is pale, sulky. "They're not listening to me. James and Sirius. But _you_ know better, Remus."

"What are you on about?"

Remus is quite exasperated. Forget about dinner. When this is over, he'll go right up to bed or maybe sit the rest of today and tomorrow in the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey will understand. And James and Sirius and Peter won't think to look for him there, knowing how much he hates the place.

"What I said about leaving school," Peter says. He's really not going to let this go. "There's a full-blown _massacre_ out there. Did you hear what happened to the McKinnons and the Prewetts? And James and Sirius see it as one stupid game."

"They're good at games," Remus shrugs. "If you're still worried about Aubrey and Rosier, well, Sirius said- "

"I know what Sirius said. I also know that he doesn't know what he's saying." Peter's wide, bald forehead puckers. "You're as unhappy about leaving as I am."

Peter is seeking solidarity. And of course he looks for it in Remus. Everyone looks for confirmation of themselves in Remus, because Remus always agrees, says yes, wants to be liked and accepted and patted on the back - "Good old Remus!" or "Isn't Moony a sport?" - wants to always be a part and not a whole, _institutionalised_ , Sirius might say if he bothered to analyse all his flaws.

Right now, however, there's just over a day to the full moon and he hasn't got a crumb of himself left to offer to anyone.

"You've got to pull yourself together, mate." The lie passes flatly through his gritted teeth. "It's not as bad as it sounds."

"James is as good as going to marry Lily. And you and Sirius…" Peter's sentence dissolves and his face fractures into a frown, ugly at the edges. "What about me?"

Remus doesn't answer. He turns his back on Peter's accusation. Five steps later, he forgets Peter and resumes counting the hours to the full moon, the days to the end of term.

* * *

After they find out, he gets the royal treatment. They induct him into their secret society, their little institution of four. _Moony_ , they christen him.

Remus is the centre of them now, the three of them orbiting around him, cracking the obscurest jokes about hairy bollocks and various lunar phenomena. Sirius did a very wolf-like howl once, in the middle of the corridor and Lily Evans walked past and shot James a very nasty look, which James took out on Sirius by jamming his elbow into the latter's ribs.

"Why am I the only one with a ridiculous nickname?"

"Good point," James says. "Can't let Moony have all the fun."

They don't come up with suitable names right away.

"The names will _find_ us," Sirius says airily and Remus shakes his head, sends his eyeballs rolling to heaven for solidarity. They've gone through Mousey and Old Man for Peter; Glass-eyes, Conceited Prick and Estupidius Blowhardicus for James; and finally, Shaggy, Rabies, Star Queen, Dick Daring and the Black Rebel Motorcycle Bloke (the latter two coined by Sirius himself) for Sirius.

For the better part of three years, James, Sirius and Pete spend hour after hour transforming themselves into temporary chimeras of all sorts. Tails out of their navels, antlers forking out of their arses, hands becoming club-shaped paws, fur smothering their entire faces, including their eyes and mouth ( _nasty incident with a magical razor - a close shave, ha ha!_ Peter had to explain to Madam Pomfrey, which was a load of rubbish of course, because it's _Peter_ , who is about as hirsute as a newborn phoenix).

"Look at us." James is tripping over his hooves _,_ which, at least are on his feet. "We're abominations of nature."

"Now we know how Moony over here feels," Sirius adds.

"I'm the one and only. You're wasting your time." Remus is really starting to get the hang of this. He understands!

But in the end they do it, they complete their animal transformations, somehow they always do it and has Remus ever mentioned how much he loves them? Well, he hasn't said it out loud, but it's pretty darned obvious. God, he loves them so much. He'd die for this bunch of fuckers.

One evening, Remus and Sirius are at the stands of the Quidditch pitch, reclining on the topmost row, legs buoyed up by the seats below. Around them, dusk is collecting at the margins, a blueness soaking into Remus's vision, moving into focus.

"Well," says Sirius. "This is it. _The_ big night."

Indeed. Full moon night. It will also be the night during which Sirius, James and Peter transform themselves into their perfected Animagi forms and square off with a fully-fledged werewolf.

"Amateurs." But Remus doesn't laugh for long. Anything can go wrong. He isn't supposed to be doing this; this is a secret that belongs to him only, and it certainly isn't meant to be a burden, much less a game, a running gag for the others.

"I'll rip you all to shreds,' he says, in an almost sing-song way, because this is the only way to talk to the others. Remus realised this years ago.

"Like you can, scrawny git." Sirius leans in, crossing the boundaries between their seats, a broad bridge into Remus's personal and very sacred airspace. "Listen, Remus. Drop it. Drop everything."

"Drop you?"

"You know what I'm talking about. Stop worrying."

He shifts to the edge of his seat. Sirius doesn't look like he's going to back off anytime soon.

"Go away," he says at last, nudging Sirius sharply, shoulder to shoulder.

"I forgot you were such a territorial beast."

"You're in my seat. Another inch and I might as well be sitting on your lap."

Sirius laughs, and the force of it jerks his head forward, as though he's spitting out that hard bark of a laugh. "I dare you," he says, spitting more hard flakes of laughter. "Sit on my lap, Moony."

Remus doesn't know what Sirius is playing at. This is how Sirius is sometimes, caustic and uncomfortable, almost as though he's readying himself to get defensive about something. But what? What has Remus said or done?

"Come on," Sirius presses. "Nobody's looking. Sit on my lap."

"Too gay for me." Now he's sure Sirius is taking the piss. Fucking again.

"You've always got to put names to things, huh, Moony?" And now, anger. Just like Sirius. Always resonating with his boxed-up anger. All that anger inherited from his parents, and he just has to pass it on to Remus. How bloody unfair. Sirius carries on speaking, and his tone is more level. "Gay. Or like, _The Institution_. Or whatever you were blathering on about the other day."

Remus shrugs. "James calls it my 'furry little problem'."

He's been holding his breath for some reason, the way people do when they're expecting something to happen. In fact, he feels his gut scrunch up and he's stock-still, waiting, even if his whole body is aching to move, to tick, to be let out of this stasis of waiting. But the only thing that happens is Sirius moving away, out of Remus's view, and the world expands emptily, becoming convex. The Quidditch pitch seems to slam into the sky.

"It's getting late," Sirius says, curtly. "We'd best be going."

* * *

Six hours to the moon.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Remus swerves around, releasing the pile of textbooks he'd been carrying in the catch of his arm. He's one hallway away from the hospital wing and who should intercept him but Sirius sodding Black. There's no hiding from mates who know you too well. Students are milling around, muttering among themselves, testing each other about the formula for Medium Strength Calming Draughts or the ecological requirements of Jabberknolls.

Sirius as usual has no books, no notes on his person. Doesn't give a crap about exams, doesn't need to. His robes are dishevelled and his hair is tousled as though he's spent the last hour or so running around the grounds. Or maybe just combing through the hallways of the school looking for Remus.

"On my way to the hospital wing," Remus says, dully.

In response, Sirius clips across the space between them in one long stride.

"What's up with you?" When he speaks, there's a dangerous wobble in his voice. Sirius is biting down his temper as best as he can.

Remus drops to his haunches and begins picking up his notes, arranging and aligning their sides with far too much care.

"You're avoiding all of us."

"Am I?"

"We've pissed you off somehow and you're playing push-and-shove with everyone."

"I'm going to play shove-off with you soon, if you carry on like this."

"The full moon's tonight," Sirius says. "James and Pete and I will find you."

"Don't," Remus starts to say, but is interrupted by Sirius a split second later: "Don't yourself. We're coming."

He gets up from where he's been squatting on the floor, and the whole corridor mists over and Sirius's face translates into a greasy blotch of colour and he can feel the crush of blood in his temples. Sirius has one hand on Remus's chin, his fingers splayed across his cheek. Remus resists the urge to incline his head, to lean into Sirius's hand, feel the press of his palm deepening into his cheek.

"You two poofs at it again?"

Sirius sucks his cheek in and smiles ruefully at Remus before spinning around to face the tosspot who'd just interrupted. Turns out to be Aubrey, who doesn't stand a chance.

The left side of Aubrey's face curdles and toughens into bark. Sirius has pretty much turned him into half a tree. Aubrey strikes back of course, and then everyone has to coagulate into a crowd and make that stupid ring-around-the-duel and Sirius slams head first against the wall but before Remus can step in and do something, Professor McGonagall shows up.

Naturally, she's furious. "I expect a lot more from all of you, especially during exam time." She scatters the crowd with a glare over the top of her steel-rimmed lenses before turning to Aubrey and Sirius. "Detention this evening, Mr. Aubrey, _and_ you, Mr. Black. And for all our sakes, I hope that this will be the last one both of you incur for the rest of the term."

To Remus, she announces curtly, without looking at him. "Hospital wing, Mr. Lupin. Take the day off."

"Well," Remus says, resigned, his cheeks drawn into his mouth so his face looks like a collapsed shell, after Aubrey and McGonagall are gone, and only Sirius is at his side, shoulders taut with rage, "That's settled, then."

* * *

The first time Sirius, Pete and James put on their Animagi forms and face Remus, the werewolf, nobody gets ripped to shreds. All in all, it's a bleeding success. _They_ are a success. They enter the Shrieking Shack, sneak up on the werewolf and back him against the wall. Remus is not there; Remus is a monster, a puppet to his own body, enslaved to The Institution. (If Remus were conscious, he'd be chuckling to himself. _I am The Institution_ , he would be thinking.)

The wolf stares at them: the big lamp-eyed dog, the stag with trees growing out of its skull, the large rat with an unnaturally shrewd gaze. Beasts, normal creatures of the forest, flee the wolf as per their instinct. These creatures here are a circus of irreverent animals with complete disregard for the natural order. For The Institution.

For once, the wolf is too surprised to move. Surprised that it can even feel surprise, and then Remus _realises,_ it's not really the wolf any longer. It's _him_ , surfacing from the sunken compartments of his brain, blinking through wolfish eyes, sifting into an uneasy consciousness, and there is a resentment that does not belong to him, as though he's broken something, violated some infrangible law. Still, he's through. He's out! Remus is out! Ruff, ruff!

James, the stag, is pawing at the ground impatiently, lowering and tossing those prongs of his back and forth. He's still the same James mussing up his own hair, even in this shape. Peter is the wary rat, whiskers and nose ticking away, always poised to flee. And Sirius, perhaps Sirius's canine form is what gains the wolf's trust. The similarity of their shapes is what soothes the wolfish, watching part of Remus. Sirius lopes toward him and nuzzles his flank (thank the beard of Merlin that there's no arse-sniffing involved).

For an hour or so, they caper around him, quite possibly awed beyond belief that they're an inch away from a real werewolf, a dangerous beast/being, which has merited the maximum number of X's according to Ministry classification. Then they get restless, and they get bold and Remus starts to get even more excited as they're all nudging and butting at him, snouts and antlers and fur and occasionally the swish of a tail against his paws as Peter darts forward and tries to touch him before scampering back. Down the staircase, through the hallway and the secret tunnel leading back to Hogwarts until they're out in the school grounds and freedom swells before him in the silvered burst of lawn. The moon has never looked so dazzling in Remus's yellow pupils.

Afterward, when it's nearly dawn and Remus is back in the Shack, freed at last from the effects of the full moon, he stretches and tests his body, immeasurably happy and without any new scars to boast about.

"I told you everything would be alright." Sirius is smug and serene, though there's a wildness in his face, flushed with lingering excitement from the night's adventures. "Moony, you old worrywart."

Remus shakes his head, unable to believe it himself. He stumbles a bit, but manages to stay on his feet. Usually, he can barely walk after a full moon. "It felt good," he admits.

"You've got to have some faith in the rest of us. We know what we're doing."

"Like hell you do. I overheard you lot discussing the day before, _what if Moony tears us limb from limb_?"

"That would be Peter, the second biggest worrywart of all."

Sirius moves in. The cracks in the wall are turning blue with the dawn. "You said tonight felt good," he says, in a curiously bland voice.

"Where are James and Pete?"

"Gone to Timbuctoo. I don't care." Sirius keeps his hands to himself, but his face drifts close, the tip of his nose mere millimetres away from that reckless point of contact, ghosting along indiscernible trails, following Remus's neck and jawbone, but not quite touching. Almost like a dog sniffing at him. It's going to happen, Remus realises thickly. If he doesn't stop it. He steps back and goes no further because he's found himself against a peeling doorframe. Sirius catches hold of his shoulders, hands like hooks.

"Sirius, stop it."

" _You_ stop it. Stop me. And I swear I'll stop." Remus tries, or half-tries, or doesn't really try. He ends up watching, unblinking, the dark, unkempt head ducking beneath his chin. Sirius's hair is greasy, unwashed, and it smells (Remus has to stifle a laugh at this) like wet dog fur. Not exactly pleasant, but startlingly familiar.

Sirius pulls back and for a moment they stare at each other. They're best mates again, have been this way for three years now, and Remus would like nothing better than them to keep it like this forever. "No? Not doing anything?" Sirius says, and then he kisses Remus hard, without warning. There's no room, Remus thinks hazily. He can't go back any further. Sirius's hand drops to below his navel, lower still, and he bites his own tongue and hisses because that bastard is fumbling at his crotch and he's plastered so deeply into the doorframe and possibly he'll have to pull splinters out of his spine later. Remus hates his fucking traitor of a body. His hands, are heavy and useless at his sides and they don't shove Sirius away, and his hips seem to jut brokenly away from the rest of his recoiling body, pushing into Sirius's hand and he's slack-jawed yet tensed up and gulping air like a fish out of water, allowing himself to be supported (and snogged and other things) by Sirius Black.

And _now_ Remus pushes him away, unnecessarily. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"You know very well. You were there." There's actually a bit of a stupid grin on Sirius's face.

"Don't do it again," is all he can manage, before walking ahead only to stumble and nearly fall.

"Easy there, Moony."

* * *

An hour to the full moon, Madam Pomfrey checks her watch unnecessarily.

"It's time," she says, Summoning a lantern. Lantern light flickers like pity in her eyes, but it's almost perfunctory. She is used to this, as is Remus; they've been through the motions for years now. He has been sitting against the headboard of the hospital bed, which is smothered with his notes. Not that he's had much success revising, what with a migraine and a simmering ache in his bones.

The Shack is as desolate as always. The floor and walls and bannisters are scored with old claw and tooth marks, open wounds in the wood. In what was once the drawing room, he peels off his robes, shirt, trousers and knickers and stashes them under a loose floorboard. The wolf will detect Remus's human scent in the clothes, but it won't remember how to delicately pry open the plank; instead, it will be sniffing, scratching, driven to a frenzy. Tonight, he'll be alone so of course he won't be in control. But this is fault. He'd sent his friends away, refused to let them help, hadn't he?

No, he can't depend on them forever. They're all leaving school soon, aren't they? The others have done enough.

He turns toward the ruined brick of the boarded-up fireplace and leans his forehead against the cool stone. His body is flushed with fever; the moon is climbing through the sky, arcing upwards. The changes begin.

"The Institution is taking over," he tells himself with a laugh. The joke has gone sour. Nobody replies.

During transformation, he's conscious long enough to feel his ribs break apart, spearing through his lungs and into the other migrating organs, before his whole body reconfigures into hulking outlines of bone. His face elongates into the snout and all the world assaults him with its infuriating and baffling stench. And then, blessed quiet, non-existence. Remus is lost.

* * *

Six full moons go by after that first successful night. None of them are bad. The full moons are spent trudging through the Forbidden Forest, exploring, or sometimes wrestling each other, though Pete usually sits this one out. The scars on Remus's body turn white.

"Are we going to tell James and Pete?" Remus asks. "About what we get up to?"

Sirius shrugs. "They've got eyes. They can see for themselves."

And that's all he cares. It does get annoying, how absolutely little Sirius cares about things, and yet he keeps coming back to Remus, doesn't he? He's got the dog's loyalty. Padfoot, they christen him.

When the others finally do notice, James is flabbergasted. Pete is less surprised.

" _You_ ," says James jabbing a finger into Sirius's chest. " _You_ and _Remus_ over here. You. _You_."

On and on he goes for the rest of the day, _you, you, you_ , poking holes into Sirius's chest and torso and ribs, always at Sirius, and almost ignoring Remus, as though he'd somehow been expecting Remus to have been a poof all along, but not his best mate. It's hard not to feel bloody resentful about this. James and Sirius are perfect together. There's a purity between them, a mate-ship, a coexistence that Remus has always wanted.

"You're going to ruin us all," Peter tells him one day. They're both stragglers at the dinner table. James and Sirius had run off, and Peter is calmly digging out cottony clumps from the leftover rolls and scattering them over his plate. "There' - it's- we're not- we're not balanced."

He struggles for the words, but Remus understands and silently agrees. "Nothing will change."

* * *

 _Moony. Moony. Remus._

A voice, minuscule in the blackness of sleep, a pin-drop of familiarity.

Growling. No, not from his throat. From something else. He's groggy, disembodied. The world smells shrill, brutal, and yet it is analysable; he reads it in waves of aromatic codes. He can smell wet dog. Matted fur. That thick dog smell that gets into rugs and cushions and is a pain in the arse to eliminate.

His vision starts to clear up, and the boundaries of things shed their fuzzy quality and slip into silvery focus. There is a black dog in front of him. The presence of the black dog is comforting and the wolf goes quiet. A companion. But Remus is in pain; weakened by consciousness, he slumps to the ground. After all, he's just spent god-knows-how-long using his own body as a scratching-board, wood and plaster and other ingredients comprising the walls caught in the clefts between his teeth. The wolf can smell the traces of its own humanity in the body it occupies, and it has been ransacking itself, trying to dig itself out, dig Remus out of his own flesh. The moon is moving through his blood.

The wolf's fur is sticky and clumping in dark patches. Padfoot, the dog, licks at the gashes and Remus goes still. For a long time he does not move. The dog nestles along his injured flank, resting its chin on Remus's shoulder.

They wait out the full moon as it follows its scheduled rotation, and the night spins away from it. The wolf retires and Remus reclaims his body. Once again, he has to go through the whole process, shrinking into himself, half the fur moulting from his skin, the other half retracted through pores. The snout is shoved back into his face, his bones grow downwards, his internal organs contract, the entire alignment of his body shifts. This must be how a ball of child's play-dough feels like: kneaded, elongated, ribbed, and re-moulded by a set of clumsy hands.

And then he's completely himself, butt naked, weak, bleeding, and Sirius transforms back in a flash and runs off to retrieve Remus's clothes. Remus has to be helped into his robes.

"You really tore yourself apart this time," Sirius says, his voice quiet, and in the dark, it's easy to imagine that he sounds concerned.

"Thought you had - how did you get out - detention?" Remus can barely string together a sentence. His mouth is scaly with thirst, like he's having the worst fucking hangover ever.

"You need to ask the right questions, Moony," Sirius teases gently. "Come on, let's get you back to Hogwarts. Hospital wing. You're about as sturdy as a Flobberworm."

He leans against Sirius's hip, his elbow locked around Sirius's neck and they're shuffle-thumping, rocking rather than walking through the Shrieking Shack, the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, and across the lawn.

"Stop a moment."

"Don't be thick. You need help as soon as possible. You're emptying blood all over me, mate."

"Don't exaggerate. Just - stop, will you?"

Sirius exhales through grated teeth. He pulls them both toward an alcove in the castle walls, kicks away the writhing potted plant and pulls them both into that little fold in the stone.

"What's wrong?"

"Water." Sirius conjures up a goblet and hisses _Aguamenti_ , and the cup fills with water, which runs cold all the way down his gullet.

There's no trace of the moon now, and he can no longer detect its pull in his blood. He reaches out and clutches at Sirius's robes, at the collar, tugs him closer.

He can hardly think of what to say after spending the last few weeks shoving Sirius away. "I'm sorry," he says at last. "Sorry."

He feels Sirius's hand over his own, easing his grip on the collar. Sirius is breathing evenly. Steady loud breaths as he leans in to brush his lips against Remus's cheek, the side of his neck, the corner of his mouth. "Moony, you idiot."

Sirius's face is leaping in and out of focus, crossing and re-crossing some threshold of clarity. Everything outside of his face has long gone to seed, stirred into the meaningless, existential mush of presence.

"End of conversation," Sirius announces. "I'm taking you now. And resistance is futile, so don't bother."

Remus manages a chuckle. "That's a lot of innuendo you're spouting."

"I'm being serious."

"Of course you are."

And Sirius has to laugh at that one. His hands curl tighter around Remus's wrist and waist.

He half-drags, half-carries Remus toward the castle, toward an outpouring of sound. James and Peter meet them on the steps to the Entrance Hall, and suddenly Remus is supported on all sides, and his skull feels like someone's beaten a sheet through it, ventilated it with breath, maybe Sirius's loud, clear breaths, and Remus falls asleep in a wave of movement shouldering him along passageways filled with warm red light.

* * *

One night during their sixth year, not a full moon night, him and Sirius are out on the grounds.

"I dare you," Remus says to him, "to climb a branch of that tree. The one that's half over the water."

Sirius grimaces. "You think I'm scared of climbing trees?"

It's an ancient weeping willow, its long hair hanging down toward the lake. The surface of the water has an oily glint.

"I think you're scared of falling out of one."

Both of them know that this isn't true. Sirius isn't afraid of falling. He's afraid of deep bottomless water; he's good at making excuses to not jump into the Black Lake and swim with the others during their moonlight excursions. He's also good at throwing a hard punch in soft places, so nobody teases him for long.

"Don't be stupid. Who d'you think I am, Wormtail?"

"Well, climb the tree then," Remus challenges. He doesn't know why he's doing this. But it does give him a perverse pleasure seeing Sirius's hesitance, the alien edge of fear.

Sirius snorts and swings himself up on a branch. Remus is taken aback.

"I was only joking."

"I know when you're joking." Sirius wedges his foot into the junction where the trunk splits into two. "You really think I'm afraid of heights or climbing trees or whatever."

Half-kneeling and half-squatting, he inches across the broad branch stretching over the water, flicking away the hangings of willow foliage. Then he pulls himself upright, arms outstretched, partly in triumph, partly in an act of balancing. The branch snaps and he drops into the lake and there is a moment of absolute silence as Sirius cuts through the dark water and vanishes. When the ripples erupt, Remus wades in and hauls him to his feet, choking. Now he knows something else about Sirius: water induces a paralysis over him.

When they're sprawled on the banks, drying out, Sirius tells him the lake isn't really water at all; it felt like he was cradled in sticky gel.

"I saved your life," Remus jokes. He doesn't ask why Sirius is afraid of water. He doesn't ask a lot of things about Sirius, about his hated family and since when Sirius ever started on blokes, or why he's still here, next to Remus.

"The water's barely knee-deep," Sirius scoffs. "Sorry to burst the bubble of your heroism, Moony, but I'd have made it out safe and sound if you hadn't panicked and hauled me out."

Remus doesn't have anything else to say. Sirius has too many walls up. But it's okay. It's Sirius. For all his wretched moods and his anger, for all the things he never hides yet never invites anyone to ask about them, he's still got the dog's loyalty and they're both still here, aren't they? So Remus crosses the gap this time and kisses Sirius, who in response makes a fist through Remus's hair and tugs it downward. There's no moon to spotlight them. He is fine with this.

* * *

Remus spends the entire exam period recovering in the hospital wing. James and Sirius and Peter come to visit him, crowding the foot of his bed. Blocks of chocolate begin to pile up beside him.

"Aren't you lucky, Moony?" Sirius says. "You get to stay in bed while the rest of us have to do exams."

"I'll have to do them later, once Pomfrey lets me out of the hospital."

Dumbledore has written a few letters to the Ministry, imploring them to let an ill student sit for his N.E.W.T.s a few days late. But Remus doesn't really care about exams. He's content, unaffected. He's not the only one; Peter seems appeased as well.

Turns out that James, Sirius and Peter had somehow got into a duel with Aubrey and a couple of his mates on the grounds beyond the watchful eye of McGonagall. Aubrey and co. had fled to the hospital wing looking more tree than human, shedding bark and lichens and woodlice from their stiffened arms, nests of twittering birds meshed in their heads. Remus had watched them traipse painfully to Madam Pomfrey, who wasn't in the least bit pleased.

"You saw Aubrey come in here the other day?" Sirius asks, grinning.

Remus laughs. "He was deciduous."

Sirius slides his hand over his, which is under the sheets, the thin cotton fabric, getting caught between the press of their fingers.

"You'll be alright, Moony."

" _We'll_ be alright," James cut in. "Don't forget me and Pete over here, you two."

Madam Pomfrey strides up the aisle and shoos James and Pete away unceremoniously. Sirius, too. But Sirius sneaks back after visiting hours. Remus gets a thorough shock and when he hears a scuffing sound under his bed, and moments later, Sirius's dark head pops up by his side.

"Not so easy to get rid of me, you know. Budge up."

"What the devil will Pomfrey think if she finds us like this?"

"You worry too much about other people's thoughts, Moony." Sirius folds in close to Remus, his head burrowing into the back of Remus's shoulder, his breathing warm against his neck, hips pressing against his arse. "They're theirs. Worry about yours. Or," Sirius pulls him over so they're facing each other, "Worry about mine."

"I haven't pleased you, have I?" Remus laughs softly. Sirius traces his mouth upwards, following the difficult, too-long sweep of Remus's neck.

"Feeling better, Moony?" his words tangle with skin, moist.

"A little."

"Better enough for this?" Sirius's hand is a sudden presence straddling the waistband of Remus's pyjama bottoms, the edges of his fingers grazing the bristly hairs curling below his navel.

"A little," he repeats, his words broken by a sharp intake of breath.

Sirius kisses Remus along his jaw, his other hand skimming along Remus's stomach, seeking out the scars mapped onto his body, the bleached trails of old pain shoelacing his skin, and as if his lips are pulling free the knots that are holding Remus in place, Remus arcs and angles into Sirius, discovers spaces and a body that rearranges itself to accommodate his form.

Six days after term is officially over, Remus finishes his last N.E.W.T. exam (Defence Against the Dark Arts - a guaranteed Outstanding, James says, offhandedly).

The school has been hollowed out. Sirius and James and Peter have stayed behind with him. Their days are lazy; there are no pranks to be pulled, but plenty of visits to be made to Hagrid's, some mucking around at the Quidditch pitch, waiting for that "slowcoach Moony".

They pack their trunks at last, a single horseless carriage awaiting them at the gates. James will be meeting Lily almost as soon as he gets back. Peter will spend a couple of weeks with his family and Sirius will be staying with Remus for a few days. And after that, they'll have the rest of their lives to think about, the rest of the world to deal with. To be useful.

As they pass through the gates, Peter sighs. "Well, this is it, then."

"The Institution," Sirius says, half-mockingly. He clambers onto the carriage and sends his steamer trunk whizzing to the back, which jolts against James's arm and narrowly misses Peter's head.

"Idiot," James mutters.

"I'll miss this place," Remus says as he climbs aboard and shoves in next to Sirius, who does not budge, and so holds them both in place.

Hogwarts is a weighty presence behind him, staring down at his shoulders. The carriage wheels start and James cracks a joke, and by the time Remus thinks of looking back, they've turned a corner and the castle is long gone.


End file.
